Obama Spending Records

Here is a quiz: what prominent federal program has grown by over 100% in the three years of the Obama presidency. The answer is food stamps. During 2008, total spending on foodstamps was about 40 billion dollars. At this level, total spending on the program was already much higher than it had been at the time when George Bush had take office. Essentially all of the poor people in the USA were covered by the program already. In the three years of Obama, spending on the program has soared to 89 billion dollars, an increase of over 120%. Some of this increase is due to the inability of Obama to point the economy towards growth and recovery. The increase in spending here, however, is much greater than the increase in the needy population. In other words, when Gingrich calls Obama the "food stamp president", he is absolutely correct. Obama added more to the food stamp program than all other presidents combined.

The question that has to be asked, of course, is how could spending on food stamps go up so much faster than the needy population? Individuals are not getting much more today than they did three years ago. No, what has increased is the number of recipients. So, how many of these folks are getting their benefits fraudulently? That question has no answer, and the Obamacrats have blocked all efforts to try to find out. The issue is not compassion, but responsible spending. Somehow tens of millions of dollars is going to people who are not qualified to receive benefits under the program, but the federal government does nothing to stop the fraud.